Page:A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts.djvu/12

iii then slowly emerging; and long struggling under the miseries of bad management, before the immediate administration of the South came under the benign influence of the British Government.

"In the whole of this period, in which I have marched or wandered, over most of the Provinces South of the Kistna, 1 look back with regret to objects now known to exist, that could have been then examined; and to traces of customs and of institutions that could have been explained, had time or means admitted of the enquiry.

"It was only after my return from the expedition to Ceylon in 1796, that accident rather than design, though eversearching for lights that were denied to my situation, threw in my way, those means that I have since unceasingly pursued (not without some success I hope) of penetrating beyond the common surface of the Antiquities, the History and the Institutions of the South of India.

"The connexion then formed with one person, a native and a Bramin was the first step of my intro-